The Five Demands

IRPWA statement on Marian Price for international women’s day (IRPWA)
Given that today is International Women’s day the Irish Republican Prisoner’s Welfare Association (IRPWA) felt that it was an ideal platform to raise the case of our National Secretary Marian Price. We feel that Marian’s plight is an issue that transcends political differences. Marian has been interned without cause for nearly a year. The British secretary of state Owen Patterson states that she is in jail because her licence has been revoked. Marian was never released on licence and the British government are fully aware of this. They claim to have mislaid her pardon. This is quite simply an unbelievable excuse for the continuation of her illegal detention.
Over the past 11 months Marian’s mental and physical health has severely deteriorated. She has been kept in isolation, a state that is internationally regarded as a breach of human rights for prisoners by both the UN and Amnesty international. Marian has spent the last 11 months of her internment as the only woman in an all-male prison. This has further exacerbated her isolation and her removal to the hospital wing at Hydebank is the inevitable result of a regime of neglect and isolation she has been forced to endure. Marian has not been transferred to Hydebank prison but rather the hospital wing there; she will not be criminalized and will resist all attempts by the British government to treat her as a criminal.
The IRPWA has at the request of Marian’s family and legal representatives given time for the legal mechanisms in the hope that this injustice would be overturned. It is evident to us that there will be no justice for Marian or any other Republican in a British court in Ireland. Today we are launching a nationwide campaign to secure Marian’s release and to highlight the farcical manner in which the British government have attempted to justify her continued illegal internment. We are calling on all Republicans and human rights activists to take a stand for Marian. Marian is not simply a political figure to ignore on partisan grounds. Marian is a mother, a wife and a sister and must be released to her family. Her case brings to mind the words of Edmund Burke “Evil succeeds when good people do nothing”. Take a stand for Marian Price and help overturn this abuse of her human rights and dignity.